Photo courtesy of Documentary Association of Europe (DAE)
Representatives of twenty-three documentary associations from across the world have met together to establish a new mission to safeguard the documentary workplace for all.
The Documentary Film Council has joined documentary associations from across the world who met together to establish a new mission to safeguard the documentary workplace for all. Participants from documentary festivals, training labs, producers, film support organisations and membership organisations joined a kick off meeting of #DocSafe online this January hosted by Marion Schmidt from DAE and DAE member Jane Mote. The initiative was launched amid growing evidence of abuse of power and evidence of the effects of poor accountability in the industry which were reported in an IDA article for Documentary late last year.
We shared issues and best practice in safeguarding during the inaugural meeting. We are now forming four working groups to focus on creating guidelines for training/labs and festivals/events as well as how to manage accusations and ways to develop specific counselling and support. These groups will be meeting in February/March and will report back to a wider meeting in April. The initiative is voluntary and collaborative but hopes that by working together the industry will be strengthened and more accessible to all.
The wider documentary community will continue to be asked to join in and widen the debate about the industry’s future in person at panels in Berlinale, Thessaloniki and other festivals this summer.
We would love to hear your feedback by contacting Emily Copley at emily@documentaryfilmcouncil.co.uk, as well as to feed in your thoughts and suggestions via docsafe@dae-europe.org.
